James Barnes

“ Every now and then the Long Tom would let go a half-bucketful of grape and scrap iron, hurling death into the boats. Every one of the privateer's crew seemed gifted with four arms. From one point of attack to another they chased about the deck. It seemed as if she numbered three times her complement. Bill Copeland was fighting like a demon. Twice had he run along the top of the bulwarks, exposed to every aim. ”

“ It was a lonely, fearful place for a man to be out there in the waste of the waters, fighting for his life. It was a lonely, fearful feeling for men to have who must leave him there. And they all knew him well; they liked him, for he was a cheerful, laughing lad. The old sailor who had been on the yard arm with him had descended to the deck. He was telling it breathlessly to the men gathered about him.
"Why," said he, "I hollers to him to be careful when the sail fetched away. It was just as if the yard tried to fling him off like that." ”

“ Have you ever seen an unwilling dog accompanying its master on a walk? how he sneaks close at the heels, watching his chance when the attention is not directed to him? How suddenly he turns tail, and after a few cautious movements that bring him beyond the reach of stick or arm, he breaks into a run at full speed, disdaining call or whistle, and puts back for home? That is exactly what the Rattler did. Scarcely had the canvas of the Ajax begun the ominous fluttering that showed the change of the wind's direction, than the privateer swung off to meet it. ”

“ At a sudden lurch of the vessel, he almost pitched forward down to the deck. Then as McGovern watched him, he appeared to give up hope, and, twisting his hand into the bight of a rope, he lay there without moving. But no man could live there long! Splinters were flying from the masts; blocks were swinging free and dashing to and fro; new holes were being torn every second in the roaring, flapping sails. It may have been that no one else had time to think about it; but McGovern did not hesitate. He threw down the sponge and jumped into the slackened shrouds. ”

“ But there he lay in the bight made by the folds of the royal, softly resting against the bosom of the sail below, unhurt, but slightly dizzy. From the hamper of wreckage above hung one of the loosened clew-lines. The end of it reached down to the cross-trees. Reaching forth, the young topman tested it, and seeing it would hold, emerged from his hanging nest, and swinging free for an instant, managed with his monkey-like powers to lay hold of a stay and reach the shrouds. There was a cheer from below, as he sprang to the deck, and this time there was no reprimand. ”

“ In a few minutes he had welcomed Captain Dewey, who, although almost old enough to remember when his ship had made her maiden voyage, was ruddy and stout in his timbers and keen of voice and eye. But by the time that a man has been three years cooped up in one vessel, his conversational powers are about at their lowest ebb; every one knows all of the other's favorite yarns by heart, and so the greeting was short and the conversation in the cabin of the Blazing Star was limited. ”

“ For fifteen minutes the Leopard fired steadily by divisions.
Covered with blood that had been dashed over him from the body of the man the round shot had killed, Allen ran aft. The ship was full of groans and shrieks and cursing. Forth from the cabin came Barron. He looked an aged, heart-broken man. When he saw the young Lieutenant, he stepped back a pace in horror. The scene of carnage on the deck unnerved him.
"The keys! the keys!" shrieked Allen, almost springing at his commander's throat. "Let us fight, if we must die!" ”

“ Had you been given the command of the Constitution, as was first intended and promised you, and were she in a condition to put to sea, I should say nothing but what would encourage you to exercise despatch."
"Ah, if I but had the Constitution and her crew," put in Lawrence, with a sigh; "if I but had them." Suddenly he brought his strong, clenched fist down upon the table with a crash: "Then this English captain would not be flaunting his flag at the harbor mouth, daring me to come on and fight him; shaming us all here where we lie at anchor! The Chesapeake is ready!" ”

“ Poor Abbott, who had been trying to urge his comrades to hasten, was among the first to fall, shot through the lungs. As no one told of his exchange of names, he was buried under the name he had assumed, Harvey Rich. And what of the real owner of that name? Alas, he, poor fellow, also, did not live to see his home in the New Hampshire hills, for he died at sea not long after the cartel in which he was returning had set sail. He was sent overboard in the sailor's canvas shroud, and the name "George Abbott" was stricken from the list of liberated ones. ”

“ ALLEN, OF THE CHESAPEAKE
Give a ship an unlucky name, and it will last throughout the whole of her career. A sailor is proverbially superstitious, and he clings jealously to tradition.
It is told that when the frigate Chesapeake was launched she stuck fast on the ways, and did not reach the water until the following day, which was Friday. Although she was a fine vessel to look at, she grounded upon the bar upon her first attempt to sail, and, when once free, behaved herself in such a lubberly fashion that those who witnessed her starting out declared she was bewitched. ”

“ Decatur dodged skilfully and tried to come to closer quarters; but the Tripolitan by great agility succeeded in keeping out of the way, and once more he lunged. This time as Decatur parried his sword-blade broke off at the hilt; dropping it, he laid hold of his enemy's spear, and in the wrestle for its possession, he succeeded in tripping up the Turk, and both fell upon the deck. ”

“ Their day has gone by with the departed day also, of the storm-along captains, the men who carried sail in all sorts of weather, who took their vessels through dangerous passages unmarked by buoys, with only the fickle wind to drive them, who sailed into the enemy's cruising-grounds, and counting on the good Yankee pine and live oak, had perilous escapes and adventures which fiction cannot exaggerate. It stirs one's blood to read of these. Surely, it will not arouse a hatred for by-gone enemies, to hark back to them. ”

“ The fugitive, soaked with bilge water, shivering and hungry, emerged from his hiding-place as he felt the movement of the vessel's sailing.
"How is that man McGovern doing?" asked Captain Hull of Lieutenant Morris, who was dining with him in the cabin. "He ought to be of some use after the trouble and worry he has caused us."
"I'm sorry to say he isn't," responded Morris, shrugging his shoulders. "He isn't worth powder. Why, even the forecastle boys cuff him about and bully him! He not only lacks spirit, but he is one of those men, I think, who are somehow born cowards. ”

“ The Leopard ceased her murderous work; but the confusion was great on board the Chesapeake. Men wept like babies. Wounded men were being carried below. Curses and imprecations on the English flag and on the distant ship rent the air. Many openly cursed their own commander.
"Tell him to come here, and look at this!" cried an old sailor, pointing to one dead body on the deck. "Then will he lower the flag? Give us a chance, for God's sake, to fight like men!"
Barron had hurried into the cabin.
"Send for the officers of the ship." ”

“ The quarter-deck rail was lined with laughing officers, in cocked hats and white knee-breeches. Under her stern gallery he read the word Poictiers! From that he glanced up at the main yard arm. Men had swung there at the end of a rope—yes, he had once seen a convulsive, struggling figure black against the sky. Men would swing there again! The maxim that 'a deserter has no defence' recurred to him. He glanced about. Close by was a chain-shot, two nine-pound solid shot connected by a foot of heavy links. ”

“ There were no seamen of the good old school that could not if they had seen the English ship but admire her. With calm precision the Shannon—for it was well known who she was—braced back her maintopsails and hove to. In silence the two manœuvred. At every point the English vessel had the better of it. Which would fire first? There was one moment when the Chesapeake had the advantage. Owing to her clumsiness more than to her agility, she came about within pistol-shot distance under the enemy's stern. But her commander held his fire. ”

“ He came forward to meet Captain Reed and lifted his hat in a courtly salute; Captain Reed presented the hilt of his sword in token of surrender.
"No, no, sir," spoke up the Captain of the Southampton. "I cannot accept this from you; and I wish to commend you, sir, upon the skill you displayed in endeavoring to save your vessel. My ship is a very fast one."
"And mine a very slow one," put in Captain Reed.
"But I am sure you did everything that any one could do to get speed out of her."
"We hove everything overboard but our top sides and scantlings," returned Reed. ”

“ The years 1811 and 1812 were remarkable ones in the annals of the whaling industry; vessels that had been cruising for months unrewarded managed to fill their holds, and now, deep laden, they were returning from the whaling grounds, singly or often in companies of a half-score or more. They were ugly vessels, broad and clumsy, with heavy spars and great wooden davits. They stenched of blubber and whale oil, and they oozed in the warm sun as they labored southward, out of the realms of ice and night into the rolling waters of the Pacific. ”

“ But it was no use, and after some firing and manœuvring Captain George Douglass struck his colors, as his friend Falcon had been forced to do some time earlier.
But what of old Renwick and the boy? They lay below in the cockpit—the old man with a shattered leg and the hero of the royal yard with a bad splinter wound across his chest. Men forget their wounds in moments of great mental excitement; since he had been brought below, the quartermaster had been following every movement of the ship as if he had been on deck. ”

“ But several times the Chesapeake yawed and fell off her course as if she had lost her head, like a man dizzy from a blow that deadens the brain. And good reason why: three men in succession were shot away from her wheel. The expert riflemen placed in the Shannon's mizzentop were doing their work well. A puff of wind took the American all aback, she fell off and swung about. Her anchor caught in the Shannon's after port. And now not a gun could be brought to bear! Whole gun's crews left their places and plunged down the companionway to the deck below. ”

“ His entering on board the Constitution had been with the permission of his parents, who saw that the only way to hold him from following his bent would be to keep him at home forever under their watchful eyes.
A great war-ship is a small floating world, and, like the world, the dangers that beset a young man starting alone on his career are many. There are the good and the bad, the leaders and the led; the people who lift up others, and those who lean. It was rather well for the boy that he had met with old Renwick and conceived a friendship for him. ”

“ There were enough men now on board of her to handle her at a pinch, and she could have shown a clean pair of heels to any one of the English cruisers then afloat. Although not altogether a beauty to look at, for she was a comparatively old vessel, she was marvellously quick in stays, and came about like a sharpie. In pointing, too, she was a marvel, and once given the windward gage she could choose her own distance. No man could sail the Rattler the way Symington could, and no skipper ever knew the capacities or character of his craft better than did the lank Yankee. ”

“ No one can gainsay the courage that was displayed by the attacking force. They were Englishmen; it is not necessary to say more. The firing became incessant. The men on the Armstrong had scarce time to reload their guns. They would snatch up a pistol here and a musket there and fire out at the water that was crisscrossed with the red flashes of the answering shots. More than once a boat had reached the side. On two occasions men had sprung to the bulwarks, and clung to the boarding-nettings until shot away. ”

“ He paid no attention to the questions addressed to him, took no heed of the merriment (for men will jest on strange occasions) ; but kept his eyes shifting from the group of officers on the quarter-deck, to the oncoming vessel that was plunging heavily in the great seas. When he had seen the Spanish flag, his face had fallen; but Bill Roberts was standing close beside him.
"Never mind that, my lads!" he roared to those about him. "No one but a John Bull or a Yankee would bring his ship along like that; take my word for it, my hearties!" and then had come the order to shorten sail. ”